by Sean McGinty
“Yeah, the birds.”
I didn’t feel like telling him about Shiloh or Katie. I just didn’t.
“Maybe this will help.” He dug a hand into his jeans and came out with a fistful of something and held it under the bar where only I could see. Resting on his palm were eight little pills—four green and four yellow.
“What are those?”
“Those are Rectrine, bro. And those green dudes are Follicol.”
I’ve never really been all that into pills. I guess my experience on medication kind of put me off the scene. But I was feeling edgy, so I figured, why not?
Oso handed me my share and I drank them down. Then I asked him what Rectrine and Follicol were.
“You don’t know Rectrine?” he said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Really? You don’t remember the ads? ‘The all-natural solution’? This was maybe two years ago? There was a blond lady in a wheat field? And some pictures of clouds?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Well, here’s the thing. On its own, Rectrine is merely a colorectal stimulant—but you mix it with plain old over-the-counter Follicol hair growth for men, and it’s a freakin’ howl. That’s why they call it werewolfing, bro!”
“Werewolfing?”
“Also because the Follicol makes you grow hair. Side effects may include hair growth, auditory hallucinations, nausea, dry mouth, memory loss, spine tingle, ghost limbs, and severe equilibrium deprivation.”
“Those are just the side effects?”
“Yeah, bro! But they pale in comparison to the main event: random energy bursts and creeping euphoria.”
“What the hell is a rectal stimulator?”
“Colorectal stimulant. Like a laxative. Thus the cheese.”
“The cheese?”
“The cheese, bro! The cheese will plug up our digestive systems and counteract the laxative effect. The cheese is key.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Wouldn’t the cheese just make it worse? Oso didn’t seem to think so. He said that’s what everyone who werewolfed did: they ate the cheese. He ripped open the plastic, tore off a big orange hunk, and slapped it into my hand.
“Eat up and hold on, because in forty-five minutes to an hour we are going to be bigger than Jesus.”
Fine. I ate the cheese. In twenty minutes, however, the pain was too much—not the pills, but the loneliness of the bar, the wickedness of man, and the inadequacy of the Utah Jazz, who no matter how good they get will always be from Utah—and that just ruins it somehow, even when they beat up on the Lakers.
Oso was fidgeting around, making a dirty, thumb-printy wolfman action figurine out of the remainder of the cheese—the dude is an artist—but I was in a dark mood. I asked him if this was what he’d meant when he’d said an adventure, sitting in a bar making cheese men. He said it was a part of it, then he bit the head off the wolfman and handed me the rest.
“Come on, bro! It’s action time.”
Twenty minutes later we were standing in the shadows of a tree in the yard of a dark split-level house.
“What is this?”
“La casa de Pedro,” said Oso. “The home of the leader of Los Ojos de Dios.”
“What are we doing here?”
“Going on an adventure, bro.”
This didn’t answer my question, but I let it ride for a moment because Oso was busy looking for something in the flower bed. Then he found it. A rock. A fake rock. With a little sliding door on the bottom. And inside the door, a little silver key, gleaming in the moonlight.
“You can’t call it breaking and entering if you got a key, bro.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“What we’re doing here is merely entering.”
Actually, the word for it was “trespassing.” But my question was, What were we doing here in the first place?
Oso pulled an envelope from his back pocket. “See this? This here is my exoneration, bro. I’m tired of running. Inside this envelope is the title to my truck, plus a key, plus instructions as to where they can find the truck, plus the rest of the money I owe, plus a note explaining in so many words that this is my final offer and that if they choose to pursue me further, I am taking my story to the cops, where I will sing like a little bird about their multitude of nefarious activities. Pedro and his bros are at the Winnemucca biker festival this weekend. I’m gonna leave this on his pillow for when he gets back.”
“Why not just hand it to him in person?”
“Nah, I want him to understand I’m serious. Imagine the look on his face when he finds out I’ve been inside his home.”
“Oso—man—are you sure this is a thing you want to be doing?”
“Absolutely, bro. I’ve got it all planned out. Here’s how it goes: with stealth and werewolf-like reflexes I will deposit this exoneration on the pillow of his bed. Next, you and I will drive up to Ass Mountain—one last ride in the creepermobile—hike up to the white-rock A, and howl at the moon. Look at it. Have you ever seen anything more freakin’ glorious?”
I looked. It was true: a big, fat yellow moon hanging in the sky over Antello.
“And then, bro, just as we’re peaking, the first golden ray of dawn will ping over the hill like a laser, and the light will scour us clean and leave us pure as children, with the white A shining on the hillside like a passing grade from God. How’s that sound?”
I couldn’t deny it. It sounded pretty good.
“I’m going in,” said Oso. “You’re the lookout. You see something, you give a howl, OK?”
He disappeared into the house, and I took up my post in the yard. It had a bad feeling to it—I mean, the yard did. The grass was too neat, the juniper bushes trimmed into cubes, with little stone statues in the flower beds—the kind of yard that belongs to a person with a home security system.
There was something else, too. I was just beginning to notice it. The air had a strange buzz—or more like a crackle, like someone had turned up the volume on a dead radio station.
Homie™ popped up.
> hey original boy_2!
u have 1 incoming call(s)!
from katarin ezkiaga!
“Send to voice mail.”
> i don’t understand
when u whisper!
please to speak louder!
“I said, Send it to—”
> ok here is your call(s)!
“Aaron?”
“Oh, hi, Katie.”
“Hi. How’s it going?”
“Um, you know….How about you?”
“Well, I’m back. We’re back. Papa and me. We just got into town. We’re staying at the Best Choice Inn out by Walmart.”
“Oh. OK.”
“He, um, kind of wants to meet you.”
“Who?”
“My dad. It’s not anything bad. He just gets really, um, excited about things….And so I was wondering, what are you doing in the MMMOOORRRNNNING…?”
Katie’s voice had gone real low and slow. Not soft—low. Like someone playing a church organ underwater, with lots of slow vibrato. Like wub wub wub wub wub. I brought up the equalizer and messed with the levels. It didn’t help. What was going on? I slapped Homie™, and the sound reverberated into the night. I scratched my head, and that reverberated, too.
My hand had reverb. Why the hell did my hand have reverb?
The pills. Right. THE PILLS. YAY! for Follicol™ hair growth for men and BritLabs® Rectrine™, and their potent interactive chemistry tingling up my spine.
Silence now.
Katie was done talking.
It was my turn to reply.
“Tomorrow morning?” I said. My voice sounded like a muted trombone, just wah wah wah. “What time again?”
“Wub wub wub,” she answered.
“OK, cool.” (Wah wah.) “Talk to you later.” (Wah wah wah.)
> end of call(s)
The nausea was hitting me hard as I flopped to the lawn. Everything was
swirly. The trees wouldn’t stand still. I thought about puking, and even tried a little, but nothing would come up. My retching sounded like a squeak toy.
Then suddenly the nausea passed, replaced by something else. Something different. It took me a moment to figure out what it was—and then I figured it out. I had to use the bathroom. I really had to use the bathroom. What about the cheese? Screw the cheese. I really, REALLY had to go—and that’s when I noticed the light.
There was a light on.
In the house.
Just this light.
A little light in an upstairs window.
And for a moment there I was filled with immense envy—because was that window not a bathroom window? Was Oso not perched up there upon a cool porcelain bowl with a Better Homes and Gardens magazine and the softest roll of new Charmin® SofterTouch Double Strength toilet paper (YAY!), while I clenched in such agony on the lawn? But then I noticed something else. I’m always noticing things.
The window—it was too big to be a bathroom window. It was more like a bedroom window. And I had to wonder at Oso’s tactics. If you’re all about stealth, why turn on a bedroom light? It was almost as if there was someone else on the premises….
And then came a crash—this big, long crash—from inside the house. Like someone tripping over a stack of pots and pans. There was a shout, another crash, and then all the lights came on at once, every single one of them, even the outside lights, like the eye of God opening up.
And it was like, Bingo, you dumb shit!
A moment later, Oso rounded the corner, heading at me in a sprint, a package in his hands. He was saying something, shouting to me, nostrils flaring like a horse, but I couldn’t make out the words—just wub wub wub—and yet I knew what the message was anyway:
RUN!
There was just one tiny, little problem. My limbs weren’t working. Or, it wasn’t that they weren’t working, per se, it was that there were suddenly so many of them. Ghost limbs. Until I sorted out which were real and which were not, I wasn’t going anywhere. It couldn’t happen soon enough. Whoever or whatever was after Oso was probably after me as well, and any second now he, she, or it was going to turn the corner and find me rolling around on the ground like some kind of whacked-out centipede.
Sure enough, as I was playing Twister on the lawn, a figure appeared from out of the dark. I curled in a ball, protecting my soft underbelly against whatever was coming at me, but it wasn’t the beast—it was Oso. He took my arm and tugged me to my feet. I could understand the words now:
“Off your ass, bro! We gotta GO!”
And then we were running. The pills were hitting hard now, and I began to understand why they call it werewolfing. Suddenly I was feeling OK. I mean, I was feeling better than OK. I was feeling like I could run.
You should’ve seen us, me and Oso. Talk about speed. Talk about endurance. Down the block, past the cemetery, the high school, the old abandoned hospital, then up into the tree streets, down another hill—I chased after my friend, and the only reason he didn’t get away was every so often he’d look over his shoulder and slow down for me. I was moving. I was going. I was feeling such sweet, sweet relief—but then I had a thought that slowed me right the hell down. Wait. Relief? Didn’t I really have to go? How come I don’t have to go anymore?
A quick inspection in an alley confirmed it. It was true. I removed my undies and flung them over a fence into the darkness in disgust—and it was only then that I realized I needed something to wipe with, and that’s how I lost my favorite pair of socks.
Oso was gone now, but I was able to locate him by the sound of his voice. He was standing at the entrance of the Old 65 gas station, pounding his fists against the big glass doors.
“Let me in! Let me in or I’ll blow this house down!”
Behind the glass, two attendants were staring back at him from the counter. One of them was holding a mop stick like a baseball bat, and the other guy was speaking very purposefully into a phone.
“Oso! Let’s go! They’re calling the cops!”
Oso wasn’t listening. He was pounding on those doors, the glass wobbling, ever so slightly, with each impact.
“Guys! I just want the key to the bathroom! Gimme the key!”
“Oso! We gotta go!”
I grabbed his arm. My friend turned to face me. His eyes big and yellow. It was like he didn’t recognize me.
“Oso. Come on!”
He growled and shoved me away. “I need the key!”
Look, you never leave a man behind. I know that rule. I KNOW THAT. But what was I supposed to do? Stand there and fight him until the cops got us both? As I was heading across the parking lot, I heard the first wail of sirens in the distance, and I called to Oso again—I freakin’ howled at him—but he wouldn’t listen. He was a werewolf.
Sirens. Lights. Shouts.
I started running.
I woke the next morning with a splitting headache and a vague feeling that I’d committed myself to some kind of obligation, but what it was I couldn’t remember. I scraped myself out of bed and crawled to the bathroom. Homie™ popped up.
> hello original boy_2!
it’s 10:08 a.m.!
the weather is: sunny 78
u r a FAIL!
yay! for banana boat® ultrabloc nanobubble hydrating waterproof sunscreen yay?
“Go away.”
> yay!?
i will be your best friend!
:)
I swatted it aside and took my first pee of the day, where I was surprised to discover that my urine was electric blue, although that didn’t concern me as much as the way it foamed. I was heading into the kitchen when Homie™ popped up again.
> sup original boy_2!
“Go away.”
> u have 2 missed call(s)!
One was from Shiloh, the other was from Katie. Neither of them had left a message. It didn’t seem like a good sign. Then Homie™ was back.
> u have 1 incoming call(s) right now!
from katarin ezkiaga!
“Thank God you answered,” she said. “I tried earlier, but my battery ran out before I could leave a message. We had to go back to the hotel to find my charger, so that’s why we’re late. But anyway, we’re here.”
“Where?”
“The pool.”
“The pool?”
“We just got here. Sorry we’re late. Are you here?”
“Am I at the pool?”
“We’re meeting here, remember? You, me, and Papa. Like I told you last night…remember? You’re still coming, right? Please tell me you’re still coming. He’s starting to drive me insane. I could really use some company.”
“We’re meeting at the pool?”
“Yes! He wants to meet you, remember? Look, it’s nothing serious. It’s just…well. I’ve got to warn you. My papa, he’s kind of…I don’t know…enthusiastic.”
“What’s that mean?”
“He may ask you some questions….”
“Questions? About what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just, you know, questions.”
The truth is, I’ve never liked swimming pools, and not just because I’m a terrible swimmer and don’t enjoy hanging out with a bunch of strangers and their bodily fluids in a big tub of chlorine—but now that I think about it, those are some great reasons right there.
There were two pools: indoor and outdoor. The indoor one was the more popular one, at least with the kids—when I got there it was a boiling froth of children, flotation devices, and actual froth. Shrieks echoed off the concrete walls. Chlorine fumes burned the air. At the far end, through the dirty aquarium windows, I could see the outdoor pool, all glittery in the sun. Two figures were paddling around in the water: Katie in a purple swimsuit, and this big hairy dude who I took to be her papa.
So out I went. The hairy dude climbed out of the pool to greet me—this short, barrel-chested man with blue eyes, a mustache, a smile like Katie’s.
&nbs
p; “My name is Aitor Ezkiaga,” he said as he pumped my arm up and down. “But you may call me ‘Mr. E.’ I am from the town of Errenteria in Gipuzkoa, Euskadi. Do you know this place? Not Espain—Euskadi. Basque Country. Katie has told me much about you. I am so pleased we can finally meet.”
“Yeah. Nice to meet you, too.”
Mr. E. looked me up and down and smiled bigger. “It is nice to be here, no? Swimming pools are places of happiness. And yet, my nipples, they are sore.”
“Papa!” said Katie from the water. “I keep telling you, that expression doesn’t translate into English!”
“Well, but it is true. Can you not both see how sore they are?”
When I woke up that morning pretty much the last thing I expected to be looking at was Katie’s papa’s nipples—and yet here there they were, just chilling out on his chest like some kind of weird sea creature.
“Why are my nipples sore?” he said. “Because I am saddened. I see her so rarely, and yet now my daughter will not race me in a swim. I have come all this way, across the ocean, and yet my dear youngest daughter refuses—”
“Papa! No one wants to race! Can’t we just hang out?”
Mr. E. winked at me. “Maybe together we will convince her for a race later, eh, Aaron?”
“I gotta tell you, I’m not much of a swimmer.”
“Nonsense! Follow me!” Mr. E. raised his arms, bent his knees, and knifed into the water with barely a splash, a perfect 10-point dive, resurfacing in the middle of the pool. “Come! Join us!”
I jumped in and we paddled around in the water for a while, and Mr. E. asked me a bunch of questions. Apparently Katie had told him about me. He asked me about my grandfather, and the treasure, and what I wanted to do after college. And I was like, College? But then I caught Katie’s eye. She’d been acting strange ever since I’d got there, which made sense—the whole swimming pool situation was nothing if not strange. But now she looked alarmed.
“Papa, you don’t have to interrogate him!”
